496 THE SO-CALLED BUGONIA OF THE ANCIENTS. 



All this display <>f learning and acute reasoning would have been 

 unnecessary if Bocliart Lad known that his pretended honey-bees were 

 not bees at all, but two- winged flies. And it is interesting to notice 

 how both Swanimerdam and ]>ochart were led astray by their intense 

 desire to give a literal interpretation to the scriptural text, and to save 

 Samson's bees at any price, although their starting point was quite 

 ditl'erent, because Bochart believed in the Bngonia and Swamnierdam 

 did not. The former was hampered by the authority of the ancient 

 writers, as well as by that of the Holy Scriptures; Swanimerdam by 

 the Scriptures alone. 



About the time when I published my above quoted article in the 

 Entomological Monthly Mmjazine I communicated my solution of the 

 question of the Bngonia, and its possible application to the story of 

 Samson, to the eminent i^rofessor of scriptural exegesis in Heidelberg, 

 Dr. Adalbert Merx. At the same time I handed to him a box, con- 

 taining about half a dozen of pinned specimens o{ BristaUs tenax. He 

 received this communication with evident delight, and recognized that 

 it offered a sim})le solution of a text which had been discussed for cen- 

 turies. Soon afterwards, he published in the German ProtestantLsche 

 Kirchenzeitung No. 17, 1887, pp. 389-392, a learned article entitled: 

 " Der Honig im Cadaver des Lowen" (The honey in the carcass of the 

 lion). It contains a summary of the discussions provoked by Sam- 

 son's bees, and thecoutroversies of Alphons Tostatus, Bishop of Avila 

 (+ 1454), of Lorinus of Avignon (15.59-1G34), and the Jesuit Bonfrere 

 (1573-1643). Professor Merx concludes by accepting the resemblance 

 of jE', te7iax to a bee as a natural solution of the question "All the per- 

 sons, says he, to whom I showed the specimens of Eristalis at once 

 recognized bees in them, except a medical man who had some knowl- 

 edge of Entomology."* 



It is now time for me to say something about Bristalis tenax Linne, 

 that bee-like fly, the resemblance of which to a honey-bee, has confused 

 the brains of the scientific and unscientific world for so many centuries. 

 I shall give a short account of its outward appearance, its metamor- 

 phosis from the larva, and of some remarkable circumstances con- 

 nected with its geographical distribution. It belongs to the large 

 family Syrphida; which contains a considerable number of handsomely 

 colored flies, very fond of flowers; "they fly with amazing rapidity, 

 and many delight to hover immovably over certain spots, to which 

 they will return if disturbed for a considerable number of times." 

 (Westw. Introd., ii, p. 557.) Their coloring consists in many cases of 

 yellow crossbands and sjjots on the abdomen, and also of similar 



* John Curtis, Brit. Ent. Dipiera, N. 432. Eristalis nubilipennis, says: "I have had 

 some ditliculty to convince persons totally ignorant of entomology, that the Eris- 

 taJes were not hees, and it is worthy of observation that, when resting, the Eristalis 

 tenax, and jirobably the whole genus, heave their bodies up and down as bees do, aa 

 if they were panting. " 



